Thursday, 20 October 2011

Bringing myself up to date

After finally getting a properly named blog I can now upload my work so it can actually be viewed.

Reviews will be placed newest first as to maintain the same order the last blog had.

Most Favourite Game :- Minecraft Beta 1.8.1

Least Favourite Game :- Condemned 2: Bloodshot

Halo: Reach

Left 4 Dead 2

StarCraft II : Wings of Liberty

Mario Kart 64 Review

Introduction

The first game I recall playing was Mario Kart 64 which was released for the Nintendo 64 in 1997 although if I remember correctly my family didn’t get a Nintendo 64 until Christmas of 1998 with one game that came with it, Mario Kart 64.

At first I was very wary of Mario Kart 64 as personally I find racing games in general dull and competitive as obviously going around the same track over and over until someone wins is quite dull. However Mario Kart turned out to be neither with its attention-grabbing race tracks riddled with hazards, random weapon pick ups and booster strips which made it a rather interesting and fun game to play.

Race Courses

Within Mario kart 64 there are 4 cups with 4 tracks, with the tracks in the initial tracks being rather simplistic, almost to ease you into the feel of the game and its mechanics. In contrast to this there are also tracks from later cups which become progressively harder and quite challenging such as avoiding moving penguins or AI controlled trucks and lorries that possess the power to squish you with their immense size. Nintendo have also done a splendid job in making each track look and feel different by including different backgrounds, textures on and off road, and even music to help give each track a different feel to it to avoid repetition. For example “Bowser’s Castle” features very low and heavily bass instrumented music with flowing lava pits and cobbled stone paths as the track, whilst “Sherbet’s Land” features very happy and jumpy music along with chirps and calls from penguins as they slide around on the icy track. One track in particular I’d like to point out however is “Rainbow Road” and is the last track in the last cup which can become somewhat dull driving wise, however this is intentional to draw the player’s attention to the night sky is lit up with characters from the Super Mario world which I really enjoy as it allows the player to somewhat reminisce about past Super Mario games and even the arcade-ish music on this track implies this.

Combat

To aid players in taking over other players or indeed defending their own position on a race track are “?” boxes which give the player a random weapon that uses a very “slot machine” esque gambling look. However there are certain factors to this weapon generating feature to help balance the game that sees players near 1st receiving bananas and green none seeking shells that they can then fire backwards whilst players near last place will receive weaponry and abilities that could make them invincible or shrink and reduce everyone else’s speed to aid the player in catching up with the rest of the main group on the track. The range of weapons is fairly basic and limited with weapons either being something you can drop to defend your position or an offence missile based weapon that may home in depending on the type of missile. However there is a very clever mechanic in that if you hold done the Z button, or the trigger as it’s more commonly known as you will hold, you can trail your current weapon behind you be it a missile based weapon or a banana skin which will act as a shield and indeed protect you from rear attacks. This however is easily countered by simply packing more than one ranged weapon which, seeing as it’s possible to get shells in stacks of 3, can happen.

Characters

Mario Kart 64 also features 8 different characters, all of which are very familiar faces from the Super Mario world which is very nice as this then allows gamers to be able to play as their favourite character, for instance I think Bowser’s a brilliant character and fills the role of “the baddy” very well and I was very happy to be able to play as him. On top of the wide selection of characters, each character has specific stats with varying speed, acceleration, cornering and weight allowing more strategic players to be able to pick a character based upon the character’s stats and their style of play, whether they like to barge lighter carts out of their way or if they like to be fast and nibble and avoid taking damage.

Conclusion

In conclusion Mario kart 64 is a highly enjoyable game with its unique traditional Super Mario cartoon animations, graphics and characters that is best played, playing split screen with a group of friends as they wail with delight at coming 1st and earning themselves bragging rights until the next game. Once you get bored of races players are also able to go and play Battle mode, which completely changes the game as being fast is no longer important and is indeed very risky when you have to be cautious and the victor is the last man standing.